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BioBlitzes to focus on native pollinators in the Smokies

Among the many ways the National Park Service is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year is by hosting a series of events called BioBlitzes that focus on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area in a designated...

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BioBlitzes to focus on native pollinators in the Smokies

University of Tennessee fungi specialist Joshua Birkebak, right, explains fungi taxonomy to citizen scientists during the 2013 All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory BioBlitz at Twin Creeks in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (CHUCK COOPER/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL)(Photo: Chuck Cooper)

Naturalist Jonathan Carpenter, right, gives a presentation during an All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory BioBlitz on Aug. 22, 2015, at High Ground Park in South Knoxville. (CHUCK COOPER/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL) (Photo: Chuck Cooper)

Mushrooms are collected for identification during an All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory BioBlitz on Aug. 22, 2015, at High Ground Park in South Knoxville. (CHUCK COOPER/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL) (Photo: Chuck Cooper)

Citizen scientists gather for orientation during an All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory Bioblitz led by naturalist Jonathan Carpenter on Aug. 22, 2015, at High Ground Park in South Knoxville. (CHUCK COOPER/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL) (Photo: Chuck Cooper)

Among the many ways the National Park Service is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year is by hosting a series of events called BioBlitzes that focus on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area in a designated amount of time.

When it comes to BioBlitzes, Discover Life in America (DLIA) wrote the book. In 1998 the nonprofit launched the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, an ambitious attempt to catalog every life form in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Over the past 18 years, a small army of scientists and volunteers have documented 19,250 species in the park, 970 of which are new to science, and 9,140 of which are new records for the park.

On April 22 and May 12 DLIA will coordinate two BioBlitzes in the Smokies, both focusing on native pollinators. Participants — many of them students — will catch and release insect pollinators and identify them with the help of experts. Specimens not identified on site will be photographed, and those images will be posted on iNaturalist, an online social network of biologists and citizen scientists, for identification.

The upcoming BioBlitzes in the Smokies coincide with the sharp decline of pollinators throughout the U.S. While the disappearance of honeybees (a nonnative species) has garnered much of the publicity, native pollinators, especially bumblebees, are disappearing, too. In the Smokies, the rusty-patched bumblebee and yellow-banded bumblebee have not been observed for 10 to 15 years. The park has close to 266 bee species, and an estimated 2,048 species of flies that also help pollinate.

"The pollinator decline is a widespread concern," said Becky Nichols, Smokies entomologist. "A lot of it has to do with there not being enough floral resources for bees. People mow down the edges of their fields, and open meadows don't exist like they used to."

The April 22 BioBlitz will be based at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, on the North Carolina side of the Smokies, as headquarters, while the May 12 BioBlitz will be based at the Sugarlands Visitor Center, near Gatlinburg, Tenn.

Todd Witcher, executive director of DLIA, said the park's All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory is building baseline data that will help park managers make future decisions in the face of environmental threats such as invasive species and climate change.

"You can't understand the changes that are happening unless you have the initial information," Witcher said.

Discover Life in America operates on an annual budget of about $200,000 funded entirely from donations and grants. In recent years, the Smokies' ATBI has become a role model for species inventories at various parks and nature preserves across the U.S., including Acadia National Park in Maine, and the Crane Hollow Nature Preserve, in Ohio.

A prominent advocate of the ATBI is Edward O. Wilson, a writer, biologist, and professor emeritus at Harvard University. In a recent Sunday column for The New York Times, Wilson argued for a renewed scientific focus on biodiversity, and singled out the species census in the Smokies as a prime example of what's needed to better understand "the little things that run the Earth."

Scientists who participate in the project often are funded through mini-grants secured by DLIA. Another component are the "citizen scientists" who provide the manpower needed to inventory the park's 800 square miles of mountainous terrain.

Witcher said a major challenge for the ATBI is finding biologists who specialize in taxonomy, the branch of science that focuses on identifying and classifying living organisms.

"There's a whole generation that has gotten away from field biology and are concentrating instead on molecular biology," Witcher said. "We've had a lot of help from the University of Tennessee, but we've also recruited from Japan and Australia — wherever the taxonomists might be.

"Take flies for example. A lot of general entomologists can get down to the family and genus, but to get down to the species level, to identifying minute details like wing structure and leg hairs, that's where a specific expert can help."

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BIOBLITZ

What: The Tennessee Geographic Alliance and North Carolina Geographic Alliance — both affiliates of the National Geographic Society — are helping to fund and plan the BioBlitzes in the Smokies.

When: Friday, April 22, and Thursday, May 12

To volunteer: To learn more about volunteering for these and other Discover Life in America projects, contact Todd Witcher by phone at 865-430-4757, or email at todd@dlia.org.

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